God has given the amazing gift of coming close to us in the incarnation as Jesus, as well as remaining intimately with us through the Spirit today, and including us closely in work with God for the Kingdom going all the way back to creation. For whatever reason, though, we are often tempted to put other things between us and God, or to do that to other people in a way that can hinder them. With reminders in art and life of how we can do that even subtly, and reminders in scripture of how God looks to bring those barriers down, we can hopefully be as closely connected to and following God as possible.

“Speaking the truth in love” is important advice, and often necessary in a world where crazy and contentious things are frequently happening and people have very different ideas about what is happening and what should be done about it - even when those people claim similar identity, affinities and associations. Having a solid grounding in Godly values for discerning truth and expressing love is essential for this practice - and having some helpful inspiration from favorite songs and stories doesn’t hurt either.

We have a great hope for total fellowship with God and experience of fulfilled salvation life in heaven - a hope which also permeates our culture in many ways. There are also a lot different ways heaven is described in the Bible, with powerful but incomplete poetic language, and Jesus especially affirms to us an idea of God’s Kingdom being among us because of him, “on earth as it is in heaven.” How do we hold all this together and live in the reality of God’s Kingdom with others now - based most on God’s values over our presumptions?

Having a personal relationship with God is an amazing aspect of faith life, but it is also very important to remember that God relates to us in the context of the Kingdom that gathers people together and draws out how God has created each of us so that we can encourage and support each other for the full experience of salvation life. Like a strong cord of woven rope, or a body made up of all kinds of parts, or like a good, hearty stone soup, we can be thankful to God for how we are better together as connected through the Spirit.

There is a rich tradition and example of the practice of lament as a core and transformational aspect of our lives of faith. Because it deals with difficult and painful emotions and circumstances, though, lament is not something that is commonly lifted up and understood in the modern church. With reflections on scripture and contemporary examples like songs by Jelly Roll, we can still immerse ourselves in God’s gift of lament for our spirituality and see how the practice brings healthy expression for even the most challenging parts of life.

It often seems like it would be the most exciting thing to be called to be a part of things God is doing for the salvation and transformation of the world - but it makes sense that it can be intimidating, or stretching, to us, too. This is a pattern throughout scripture and Church history, but that doesn’t seem to deter God from still wanting to move and include us in what’s going on. Realizing how profound a question “what is in your hands?” can be for how God works, and seeing what God can do, can end up transforming all kinds of things.

It is often a fact of faith that we vacillate between states of boldness and bravado to go after something, and fear and confusion about what that will actually mean. We see plenty of examples of this in scripture - like with King Saul, Jonah and Peter. What helps us understand all that is involved in God’s values - both the beauty and the challenges - and find God’s support for us so that we might live faithfully and experience the fullness of salvation life, even when fear needs to be overcome?

There are plenty of examples for how attention and power work in the world for us to be tempted in our faith to think that proving ourselves as the best kind of people over and against others is a way to get God’s favor or ensure our place in the Kingdom. It is good to steep ourselves in the consistent stories in the Bible, and where we see God continuing to move in history and the world around us, of how God affirms value and who God ensures there is room and a role for. That can help us both see others and appreciate their contributions as God does, and to find encouragement to put forward what God raises up in us even if others might discourage or devalue it.

In Jesus, we see God’s glorious divinity revealed not to be something that keeps God distant from us, but that is most fully expressed through God’s loving, serving incarnation - taking on humanity, living life like us, and making new things possible with that presence. Because that was done for us, following Jesus and experiencing salvation includes joining Jesus in finding ways to relate to others the same way. It’s often not easy, but even in the most difficult to connect circumstances, it is a profound means for transformation and true live to be experienced together.

Worship can take on so many forms in our lives both within a particular Sunday service, and in our daily rhythms or unique things we have to face outside of church. This reflects the breadth, depth, and majesty of God, and also helps worship be incredibly transformational for us when we turn our attention to God in vulnerability, awe and thanks because it’s range of relevance can touch any personality in any experience.

Modern technology and social structures hold remarkable capability and power, and often offer it to us as well. Understanding and discerning the distinct and life-giving values for power that are embodied by God and extended to us as followers can be essential to navigating temptations and finding expressions of technology, socio-political influence, relationships and more that can bring holism and shalom instead of exploitation and marginalization. This has been true going back to well before the technology that fascinates us most now, and is still valuable to lives in today’s context.

The rapid rise of artificial intelligence technology can feel very hard to keep up with. It has powerful potential which can be received as either ready for amazing feats, or as set to overwhelm us into a dystopia. With something possibly seen as so all powerful, we can remember one of the best questions we can ask ourselves as people of faith is whether we are engaging with anything we come across as people of our own conscience as formed by God - rather than just getting swept along in either triumphalism or doom.

For many people, one of the most perplexing stories in the Gospels is of Jesus apparently calling a Canaanite woman a dog - using a slur and seeming to pick favorites for God’s love and power when that is so antithetical to the values expressed in the rest of his recounted ministry. But as we’ve seen in other sermons in this series, context often gives us a bigger and clearer picture with more faithful meaning. This story may actually help us encounter Jesus as more alive, clever, joyful and insightful than we can sometimes experience in the text - and encourage us in how we follow Jesus in our relationships too.

It is very exciting to think about the possibilities of being called to be a hero in God’s kingdom that stands out and does something it seems like no one else can do. On a surface level, we may even mistake some of the stories of people in the Bible as being about that. However, if we look at context more carefully for how God moves, we can see ways God lifts lots of people up and draws us together to bring about the Kingdom. Still very inspiring and empowering, but perhaps different that we would picture if we’re used to the glory and power of the world.

Miraculous stories of people being caught up into heaven leave us in awe and might have us focusing most on what is now missing. However, in Biblical stories of this, we can see that what is passed along and what people are invited to continue in the legacy of those who have left actually offer a gift of profound presence to celebrate and in some ways be in just as much awe about.

One of Jesus’ most difficult teachings, because it seems so incongruous with so much of other things we associate with Jesus because of what we see in his teaching and actions, is the saying “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Yet Jesus also says in this same teaching about how conflict can happen when living his values that “you are not worthy of me if you do not take up your cross and follow me.” When we hold those images together, and also see the connections of Jesus’ teaching with the legacy of Hebrew Bible prophets correcting the people’s misconceptions of peace before the exile, we may find a difficult, but uniting meaning in Jesus’ sayings and insights for navigating our time and place.

The world has a lot of things swirling beyond our control that can draw out all kinds of emotions from us. In the face of turmoil, our faith naturally seeks peace and reassurance, but a command of “don’t worry” can feel as likely to be as effective as telling someone really upset to just “calm down.” But perhaps in seeking real practices of the Kingdom of God in how we value and treat each other, we can find a community that helps alleviate what we worry about most because of how we treat each other after God’s example.

The Bible has a lot to say about who we are and what our relationship with God is like: we’re created in God’s image… we are prone to sin and failure and mistakes and pushing ourselves away from God… we are invited to be a part of God’s redemption of all creation… Sometimes we can focus a lot on any particular aspect of that, for ourselves or others, and be prone to pride or dehumanization. Perhaps reflecting on all these ideas together can help us operate humbly as Children of God seeking transformation of ourselves and everything.

We have heard that God knows plans for us - not to harm us, but to prosper us, and to give us a future and a hope. It might surprise us that God originally spoke these words to people entering an exile in the country that conquered them and destroyed their home that most of them would never leave, not to people ready to enter the best of times. Maybe seeing this context helps us find a resilient salvation that brings transformation and thriving to any circumstance, with even unexpected people, and helps us know God will walk with us all the way through anything, even if we aren’t promised easy escape or constant comfort.

The idea of God being with us, even when there are only a few of us together, is incredibly encouraging. As it turns out, though, Jesus gave this reminder in the context of people approaching someone to repent about a problem. However, when we see this verse in it’s full context, we don’t replace a God of intimacy and care with a God piling on confrontation. Instead, we meet a God with us, in whatever we can bring, in all aspects of life, graciously transforming us for a life of thriving for everyone.